Actually, there isn't much to say about myself, come to think of it! Since, as they say, a picture speaks more than a thousand words, mebbe it's time you got a look at my ugly mug. This pic was taken on Kovalam Beach, south of Thiruvanathapuram, Kerala.  

So, maybe I should tell you a little bit about myself. Well, I'm 33 years old, have just completed my Ph.D in International Studies in New Delhi though I hail from the state of Kerala on the Southern-most tip of the sub-continent. Ah, here comes the map

What is shown on the map is the lower half of the Indian sub-continent which contains the three southern neighbours of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Now if you screw up your eyes and take a close look you will see where I've  marked my hometown, Tiruvalla.
My wife Susan also comes from Kerala, from a village called Naranganam which is about 15 kilometers from Tiruvalla. However, I got to meet her 3000 kilometers away from Kerala, in New Delhi where we both completed out Ph.Ds at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, she on the European Union and yours truly on broadcasting.

The Early Years

I have also been doing a bit of research on myself for the purpose of this page and this is what I could find: I was born in Sandakan which is in Sabah which is a state(?) on the island of Borneo which is in the country of Malaysia. According to reliable sources, I was pretty cute at birth, and according to the same sources, have deteriorated substantially since as the snap above would testify. I don't remember much about life on that exotic island since I was there for only four years. That was followed by a one-year sabbatical in India (at which time I was presented with a brother) and then it was Onward Ho! to Nigeria in Darkest Africa. However, after three years I was sent into exile to stay with my grandparents in Kurrianoor, which is about 15 km from Tiruvalla (refer map), the reason for this being that most of my fellow students at primary school in Katsina, in the state of Kaduna in Northern Nigeria were five to ten years older than me.

Now, as you can see, my grandparents were great people and I had a great time there; even more so since my mother's sister's family was also settled there and they spoiled me rotten. My uncle was a farmer and what I remember most from those days is the harvest season when the miles and miles of  paddy fields were like lush green carpets with the labourers stooped over patiently reaping the harvest.When darkness fell, the petromax lanterns would come on, their incandescence drawing what looked like all the insects in the world towards them. Among them were fireflies who  no doubt were wondering who this big new firefly in the neighbourhood was! I would be lulled to sleep by the sound of the wind rustling through the fields punctuated by snatches of conversation coming from the labourers gathered round the fire.Sadly those days are no more since most of the paddy fields in Kerala have been filled up and  giant mansions constructed on oil money flowing in from the Gulf  now take their place.

Out of Africa

Anyways, coming back to the story of my life, my sojourn in this veritable Garden of Eden was all too brief since the powers that be i.e., my parents decreed that I was to return to their custody. This time around I was presented with a new sister with the name of Anju. I spent the next six years in Nigeria, managing to pass my WAEC(short for West African Examination Council) exams as well as the General Certificate of Examination exams conducted by the University of London, the latter with some difficulty though I must hasten to add that I got an A in English( a better grade than Prince Charles)! I was once again dispatched off to Kerala and joined a prestigious private school in Trivandrum where I found that I was way out of my depth, especially when it came to the Physical Sciences, and most especially the dreaded M word, Mathematics. The inevitable happened; my mind just snapped one fine morning (which also happened to be the morning of the final examination) and I did the unthinkable- I wrote an essay on Richard the Second in my Maths paper. Needless to say, I was out on my ear and it was back to my grandparents in Kurrianoor and Tiruvalla where I joined the local college run by the Marthoma Church, called, what else, Marthoma College. The rest of my family joined me after a while, not because of my daring escapades in Trivandrum lemme hasten to add, but because the economy of once rich Nigeria had been raped and plundered by its rulers, elected and otherwise, to the extent that it was no longer a viable proposition to live in that country.
Marthoma College was a bit of a culture shock, to put it mildly; after the free atmosphere of Nigeria, it was kinda difficult to adapt to the strict and conservative social norms of small-town Kerala. No interaction with members of the fairer sex was the golden rule, though the less we talked to them, the more we talked about them! I made some good friends there and one of them Joby, not only taught me to drive a scooter, but also followed me on to Madras

On to Madras

The next phase of my life began when I left for Madras to join the Madras Christian College, all of a hundred and fifty years old and alma mater to my father and grandfather, and a dozen odd relatives. I was assigned to Bishop Heber Hall, the hostel which had also played home away from home to my father.(Picture of Bishop Heber Hall) It didn't feel like home initially especially since the newcomers were all treated to royal ragging by the seniors. This hoary tradition took many forms from being woken up in the middle of the night and being asked to take a dip in the Heber pond (see picture) with all ones clothes on and then being asked to count the number of pillars around the Hall to riding the Heber Horse (particularly painful) where one had to mount a horse, usually the door and gallop away on it, all the while shooting down flies with a gun(hockey stick). Sounds like fun, doesn' it?! Ragging, incidentally, has been banned by the Supreme Court of India which viewed it as a sadistic way of deriving pleasure out of the pain of others, or words to that effect! But, the fact remains that many of those who eventually became my friends in MCC were those who'd ragged me. Nothing like a bit of ragging to break down the barriers and build up the spirit-if it's not been broken!

Rude Awakening

After three interesting and enlightening(I refuse to elaborate!) years there, it was off to Delhi, to join Jawaharlal Nehru University, and its School of International Studies to do my M.A. Delhi was a bit of a shocker initially, the people, the traffic, the violence- I wouldn't have survived but for my mother's sister and her husband who were temporarily posted there. In the first month itself, I came down with typhoid-I don't remember anything from that period except what my aunt occasionally tells me, and even she doesn't like to talk of it! To cut a long story short, I've been in JNU for nine years now, not exactly a world record, but long enough for us to make it into the newspapers! You can read all about it here